


out of reach

by gracelesso



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Accidents, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Steve Rogers, Dark Humor, First Dates, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mental Health Issues, Miscommunication, Teacher Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-17 12:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18098861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelesso/pseuds/gracelesso
Summary: “So,” says Clint, and Bucky tries not to flinch. “We gonna talk about it? Not putting any pressure on you. Just letting you know you can if you want to.”Does he want to? What would he even say? 'My life is imploding, I’m in the wrong career, I think there are mice in my apartment, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in over two weeks, and I accidentally insulted the guy at Craft Loft about fourteen different ways in under five minutes this afternoon?' What good could saying that do him?*Steve's socks are sodden from where water has seeped through the cracks in the soles of his worn out boots. It’s hard enough on a good day to look like a credibly intimidating person with a frame built out of toothpicks and stubbornness, and today has been no kind of good. He keeps going over how he dealt with the panicky guy with the bun, and his feelings have moved from annoyance to self-flagellation.A chance encounter between a highly stressed teacher and a prickly retail worker leads to introspection, injury, a whole lot of awkwardness, and possibly a future together - if they can manage a sensible conversation without wanting to spontaneously combust.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> right! here's my contribution to the 2018 Stucky AU Bang - i have done my best. the remaining chapters will be posted very soon.
> 
> a quick note on the tags & content: this started out life as a fluffy and amusing meet-ugly story, and somewhere towards the end of its gestation it developed a hefty dose of the nightmare hell that is managing your mental health as a young adult in a shitty job. it's not particularly dark, but nor is it the light-hearted little thing i intended to write - there's more information in the end notes.
> 
> art from the endlessly patient and brilliant [Espressosaur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinogiveafuck) will materialise in Chapters 2 and 3 - praise him, he's had to put up with such a lot from me.
> 
> thanks also go to the SAUBB mods, the extraordinary number of supportive and brilliant people who've listened to me angsting about this story over the past too many months, and in particular my literary (?) midwife, victim of an unfortunate mind meld, and general all-around savio(u)r [Taja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tajargirl) who has done battle with my refusal to spell like an American and won.

Steve would like to know who thought it was necessary to pack a thousand polystyrene balls in plastic sleeves of ten. Not only is it an environmental disaster, but it’s now his task to unwrap them all. He’s been at it for half an hour, sitting on the floor because Phil’s desk is covered in very important paperwork that can’t be moved, and he’s still not done. He would also like to know which supernatural entity he pissed off to be born at a time where a fine arts degree gets a person a job like this, and then expects them to say thank you for it. Pre-wrapped polystyrene. It’s packing material. What’s it going to do, shatter? For _fuck’s_ sake.

The door to the back room - part office, part kitchen, part storage space, all dingy - swings open, interrupting his flow. The tube in his hand shoots its contents across the floor. “Shit! Hi Phil, one second.”

The mild-faced man in the doorway doesn’t react to the lightweight golf ball-sized spheres skittering past his feet. “Customer, Steve,” he says. “You can finish inventory after lunch.”

Phil ambles over to the desk, pulls out a packed of cookies and a true crime novel with a lurid red and grey cover, and sits down. Steve scrabbles around for the balls, pitching them into the basket and trying to brush dust off the seat of his pants. Someone - it’ll be him, it’s always him, he has to do _everything_ around here - needs to sweep this floor, badly. 

“Go on,” says Phil through a mouthful of wafer. Steve bites down a riposte and stands up with a grunt. Whatever the customer’s after, it’s not going to be fun - Phil has no problem dealing with the straightforward bits, but he was hired for his (modest) managerial talents. Anything that even touches on creative skill gets passed off to Steve. As he heads out to the shop floor, he plasters on his best “the customer is always right” face and hopes he can get it over with quickly.

*

Lunch break ends in eighteen minutes, and Bucky has no idea how to keep a class of seven-year-olds entertained for a whole afternoon. Usually they’d have math for an hour, and then Clint would come and take over. But tomorrow is Halloween, and the Powers That Be have dictated that the kids can have the afternoon for a relevant craft project, and Clint Barton left his bag of tricks and art supplies on the fucking bus.

Banking on Clint’s organizational prowess was not a smart idea to begin with, Bucky realizes now, staring at packs of multicolored construction paper and fourteen different kinds of glue. Clint is the ideas man, though. He’s a real natural with the kids, and they all love him, and he manages to breeze through classes virtually unprepared. It’s amazing how quickly a child will fall in love if you can juggle stationary. Could they get some pumpkins for Clint to juggle? Can Bucky juggle anything?

None of this is helping to allay the constricting panic in his chest. His heart’s too big and not strong enough, his lungs are too small, he’s acutely aware that his brain is nothing but fat and water and electricity. His hands are numb and very far away. He yanks out his phone to call Clint and scatters change across the floor. It can stay there. Sixteen minutes, says the screen, rejecting his thumbprint. He mashes in the passcode and hits call.

“Come on, fuck, fuck, pick up, pick - Clint?”

“Bucky, where are you?” Where is he? Where the hell does Clint _think_ he is? Bucky feels sick.

“Fuck you, Barton, I’m in Craft Loft trying to cover _your damn ass_. What the fuck was in that bag of yours? What are we supposed to be doing? I don’t do crafts,” he hisses into the phone, “as you damn well know.” He adds the knowledge that he’s being unreasonably rude and will have to apologize later to his pile of troubles. 

“Ah Jesus, why didn’t you tell me? I was gonna ask you to cover for me so I’d have time to go get some stuff.” Fuck, that would’ve made much more sense. _Stupid, stupid._ Clint gets away with murder, nobody would have minded him wandering in late after lunch. “Hey. Take a breath, yeah?” Clint interrupts the spiral. “You remember those spider web things you found? They were great. Just get popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, yarn. We’ve got that big box of polystyrene balls left over, it’ll be fine.” 

“Pipe cleaners, eyes, sticks, yarn?”

“You got it. Try and calm down a bit before you come back in, alright? I can cover the kids, play a game or something, and I think Pierce’s thing with the board is today so he’s not even around.”

Bucky nods, then realizes that Clint can’t hear that. “Okay. Alright. Thanks. See you in a minute.”

“All good, dude.” The line goes dead and Bucky breathes deep. Pipe cleaners, eyes, sticks, yarn. Pay. Back to school. Fourteen minutes. Clint has a plan. Clint’s covering his back. Pierce isn’t around to tear strips off him again. This is fine. There’s even time to pick up the coins that have skittered across the aisle.

Twelve minutes - not that it matters anymore, he’s fine, he can breathe, he’s fine - and he’s taking a moment to evaluate the merits of white versus cream yarn. Eleven minutes brings him to the counter. There’s nobody at the register.

The large clock behind the counter ticks balefully. The ebbing panic rushes back with a vengeance. Bucky needs to pay. He needs to get back to the school. What if Pierce is around after all? What if Bucky rolls up to the school looking relaxed, holding a big bag of craft stuff like a neon sign saying “I DON’T HAVE MY SHIT TOGETHER” just as the principal comes back? What if he runs into Rumlow? What the hell was he doing, breathing like there was time and Clint’s plan would save him? He needs to get out of here. His time is running out and there’s no one behind the counter. 

There’s no bell or any method of summoning anyone to help him. He glares at the security camera, hoping there’s someone lurking in the back office who’ll come to his aid. Nobody comes. The clock ticks on.

There are quiet voices coming from the back of the store. Bucky pursues the sound. An elderly woman with a cane is talking to a young guy in a cheap uniform polo shirt, the same lurid blue as Craft Loft’s logo. The employee guy has sandy hair styled into some hopeless parody of conventionality, as though he doesn't want anybody to notice that he buzzed one side of it pretty recently. He’s slight, barely past Bucky’s shoulder, but wiry as a jockey. Hyperaware as Bucky is, something about the guy’s posture puts him on edge - there’s tension in his jaw and his arms are crossed tight over his narrow chest, almost combative. His eyes are bright, but narrowed impatiently, and the twist of his mouth betrays a hint of bitterness.

“It has to be that one,” says the woman as Bucky approaches. The guy looks like he’s barely holding back an eyeroll.

“Ma’am” - his customer service voice is immaculate - “there is truly no difference between the two sets, and this one costs $3 less.”

“My daughter specifically said she wanted a Staedtler marker set for the children, like she saw on the advertisements.”

Bucky goes to clear his throat but no sound comes out. The guy flicks a glance his way. _Oh god._ Why can’t he be a normal person. Why has every single day since he moved here been an unmitigated disaster. Why can’t he pay for a bag of craft materials without it feeling like he’s in a countdown montage on fucking _Chopped or something?_

The woman continues to lecture the salesclerk but Bucky can’t hear a word. He’s having an out of body experience or dissociating or something and he’s going to fucking scream or just fall over and all of this is so irrational and _why in the name of God can’t he just. Speak_.

“Sorry I need to pay I’m in a real rush right now I’m sorry to interrupt.” The words spew out of him and he immediately snaps his jaw shut in horror as the two people in the aisle turn to look at him, startled.

“I’m just with this customer right now,” says the sales assistant. There’s a little badge on his chest, Bucky notices. It says “STEVE”. Steve looks shocked. Steve must think he’s the biggest freak in the city. Steve’s right. 

“Sorry. It’s fine. I just. Need to get back to school.”

Shit. Steve is staring at him. Why did he say ‘back to school’? Now he sounds like one of those teachers - the ones who sound like they’re stuck in some kind of perpetual adolescence where their entire lives revolve around school forevermore.

The woman cuts in. “You go ahead, dear,” she says, a lot less querulous than she had been with Steve, whose eyebrows pull together. _Shit._

“No no I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have cut in like that, you go - I can wait.” They’re both staring at him. He’s getting later by the second. This is not the worst day of Bucky’s life, but it’s shit nonetheless. He feels like someone has poured rubbing alcohol into his veins, and also like he might blow apart in the faint breeze of the air conditioning. 

“Really,” the woman says to Steve, all glittering eyes again, “if you’ll just get those markers down for me, you’ll be free to help this nice young man.” Bucky sees Steve’s jaw jut, and experiences an attack of helpfulness.

“Here, let me -” He cuts over whatever Steve was opening his mouth to say and has the big box of markers in one hand - Christ that’s high - before he realizes his mistake. He’s overstepped. He’s stepped on Steve. He’s tried to do Steve’s job for him. And there’s no way Steve could have reached the -- Jesus _fuck_ , let him evaporate.

He scrapes out a fifth apology and doesn’t look at either of the people flanking him, just meekly holds out the box. The woman takes it. “Go ahead,” he mutters, feeling like the worst kind of overbearing insensitive catastrophic asshole _mess_ on the planet. As they walk off, he contemplates the merits of lying down on the floor and never moving again, dismisses the idea because it would inconvenience Steve the sales assistant, and scrubs away a completely unnecessary tear. God, he’s just so _tired_ all the time. When is the universe going to cut him a break? 

The bell over the front door jangles and Bucky snaps out of his panicked daze. He’s still got to get back to the school. Still got to pay for the things he’s holding. Still got to go to the counter, where Steve is, and look him in the eye, and not do anything else terrible and awkward and maladaptive, and pay for the things. He can’t do it. He doesn’t have a choice. 

Keeping his head low so he doesn’t have to look Steve in the eye - _real mature, Bucky, you fucking disaster_ \- he drops his would-be purchases on the counter. Steve starts scanning the yarn in silence, so Bucky dares to look up. His movements are clinical, and he doesn’t look at Bucky, just glares at the orange tissue paper as though it’s affronted him. The scanner bleeps into the tension like an unhappy heart monitor. Bucky’s stomach dips. Steve still doesn’t make eye contact. There’s color on his cheekbones as he announces the total price - Clint owes Bucky dinner for this - and Bucky taps his card to pay. 

“Listen, Steve,” he says, and immediately wonders why he used the man’s name. Steve looks at him, visibly startled. _Why._ Why did he say that? His mouth won’t stop betraying him. He wants desperately to understand how this brief interaction with a stranger has gone so inexplicably off the rails. Then he remembers he’s on an extremely tight deadline.

“Shit, I have to run,” he exclaims. “I just wanted to say sorry for everything. Thanks. Sorry. Bye. _Shit._ ”

He scoops up his purchases and flies out of the door in the same state of panic he arrived in. 

*

Steve watches as the door swings shut behind the utter catastrophe who appears to have just had a nervous breakdown all over his store, keeping an eye on him until he’s out of sight. He feels keyed up, punchy.

“What the fuck just happened?” he mutters aloud, just as Phil walks out of the stockroom, a few pale crumbs sprinkled on his shirt.

“Language, Steve. I’ll take over for a bit if you want to go eat and finish inventory.”

 _Impeccable timing as always_ , Steve thinks, but all he says is, “Sure.”

He replays the events of the past fifteen minutes as he starts unboxing clip frames, watching out for the ones that will inevitably have turned into lethal shards. As he combs over the events, trying to figure out how such a simple interaction could have gone so wrong, the buzzy adrenalized feeling fades into something sicker. That guy was clearly agitated from the second he appeared in the aisle, and if Steve hadn’t already been at the edge of his capacity dealing with the first customer there’s no way he’d have been so brusque with him. He’s let his stupid prickly pride bounce off onto someone else, again. 

Oh _God_. Sam was right.

*

Half an hour later, Bucky finds himself perched on the edge of Clint’s desk, watching his colleague detangle several yards of proto-spiderweb. He’s still fretting over his bizarre interaction with Steve-the-salesclerk, the memory of the man’s pissed-off jaw clench playing in a vicious loop of anguished self-loathing.

Clint’s giving him puzzled eyebrow signals - it's pretty obvious how distracted Bucky is, even to the kids. Of the pair of them, Mr. Barton is the one known for minor disasters, but today Mr. Barnes has managed to knock over a bottle of glue and send a ball of yarn flying across the classroom. Thus his relegation to the sidelines.

Unfortunately, the sidelines are the perfect place to fret, and Bucky’s still spiraling - about Steve, about school, about his own persistent ability to fuck up every simple task. He’s just a disaster, lately, and he can’t seem to stop the steady backslide into chaos; it’s spinning plates and juggling eggs at the same time, all while being pelted with rotten fruit, in a state of permanent sleep deprivation. Days like today - well, they’re happening increasingly often, and he can never quite put his finger on what’s gone wrong. Everything in isolation looks so trivial, so unworth this level of irrational overreaction, but it’s piling up until he’s nothing more than a bag of skin filled with bees.

He’s yanked out of his distraction by a shriek from one of the girls and a clattering sound.

“Ellie,” he says, before he’s even looked up, “concentrate on your own work. Leave Hannah alone.”

“But she started--” Ellie is holding two popsicle stick frames and looks stricken.

“I’m not interested. Hannah, switch places with Jake if you’re getting distracted. Sophie, don’t do that! Kieran, please, please don’t put the glue in your mouth.”

He hops off the desk and motors over to the children, swiping a bottle of glue from a tiny boy with a mop of ginger curls. It sticks to his fingers - there’s glue all down the sides - and he grunts despairingly. Clint catches his eye with a sort of aggravated sympathy. Bucky feels instantly bad. He’s dropped the ball completely, and left his friend in charge of a writhing knot of young ones and craft material. He mimes tilting a bottle and tips his head to the side - universal code for “Let’s grab a drink after this.” Clint nods shortly, and goes back to unpicking Andy’s horrible snarl of thread and wooden sticks.

By half past five, Bucky has never been so ready to leave a place. Although, he thinks, he feels like this about twice a week. He’s in the wrong job, maybe the wrong life. Somewhere, he took a turn that landed him here, in a drab classroom that the school’s budget won’t allow him to decorate, scraping accidental decoupage from the sticky desks on his own time. Clint’s taken over the desk perch, making Bucky compensate for his slack inattention during class. It’s a fair penance.

“Bar?” he says, just as Bucky’s nail splits on a particularly stubborn slug of dried glue.

“Motherfucker,” he hisses. “Sorry, what?”

“You wanna grab a drink? I owe you for the stuff, remember.”

“You sure? I was pretty shitty this afternoon, you don’t have to pay me back.”

“Nah, you’re making up for that now. Attention’s a different debt from money, anyhow. Let’s go eat onion rings and talk about whatever’s got your head on back to front, on me.”

Bucky thinks about it for a second. He suggested it first, but now he feels less certain. He doesn’t really want to talk about the afternoon’s bizarre events, but also, he really does. And Clint’s good company, won’t press the issue. The other option is drifting back to his own apartment, catching up on some prep he can definitely manage tomorrow morning, and eating terrible leftovers in front of Netflix on the sofa.

“Yeah, no problem. We done here?” He drops down into a squat, looking at tables from eye level, turning his head to see if anything catches the light. The cleaners will be in at six, but it’s an unspoken rule that if you’re any kind of decent person, you do what you can to make their life easier. Only Rumlow, the gym teacher, doesn’t follow it, and it’s not that Bucky and Clint and Sharon and the others clean up after themselves for the perks rather than out of the goodness of their own hearts, but they know for certain that their misplaced possessions find their way back to the staff room with far more regularity than Rumlow’s. It’s a little smug-making, because Rumlow’s an ass. There’s nothing more likely to set Bucky against someone than the use of the phrase “if you can’t do, teach,” but the addendum “if you can’t teach, teach sport” certainly applies to Brock Rumlow. He’s a power-hungry bastard on a trip, and he takes it out on the kids.

“Looks good to me,” says Clint. “C’mon. Let’s make the most of our fourteen hours of freedom.”

The bar is a ten minute walk from the school gates, right down the road from Craft Loft. The shutters are just coming down over the display windows as they pass on the other side of the road, and Bucky spots a small figure ducking out from under them. It’s Steve. The rain’s coming down pretty hard - of course it is - and the guy’s just got a light jacket over his work polo. Bucky tries not to stare, and fights a bizarre impulse to go talk to him, to apologize, to offer him his umbrella. Apparently he’s not completely successful in keeping it all bottled up, because Clint jabs him in the ribs, pretty hard.

“That poor guy’s gonna get soaked, huh.” The street’s virtually empty, and the two of them are staying mostly dry under Clint’s ludicrous purple golf umbrella, although the rain’s sideways enough that Bucky can feel his pants beginning to stick to his thighs. Bucky remembers that he needs to respond.

“Uh,” is what he manages. Steve has his head up, walking directly into the wind almost in defiance of it. Bucky sees him take off his glasses and hook them into the neck of his shirt. He’s being creepy. He’s never even met the guy - just interacted with him in his place of work. Steve ducks off down a side street, and Bucky snaps back to the present as a car zips past, spraying water right at him. He yelps. Clint, shielded from the deluge behind Bucky, makes a strangled noise that’s very obviously trying not to be a laugh.

“This day, this fucking day,” spits Bucky, suddenly at absolute breaking point. He tries to lift his eyes to the heavens but above him is the translucent purple canopy of that ridiculous umbrella. Another absurd detail in the black comedy of his life. “Why is it never just like. A slightly rough day. Why can’t this shit get spread out over a month? Why, why is it always all at fucking once? Every little goddamn fucking thing that could happen and it’s all happening right fucking today.”

Clint is laughing openly now, but it’s sympathetic. “Barnes. Bucky. Dude!” he cackles, jostling the umbrella so it showers water over them both.

“Fuck!” shouts Bucky, who is this close to just - he doesn’t know. Sitting down on the sidewalk and hoping he gets washed into a storm drain. Begging Clint to impale him with the umbrella. Crying, maybe. “I am - so done. With. Everything!”

“Are you,” - Clint sounds a little tentative, like he knows Bucky’s a corroded vat of nitroglycerin and the world around him is on fire, and Bucky would feel bad about that, except he’s throwing himself headfirst into his misery and it’s the most fun he’s had in days and hang the consequences, he’s been building up to this for a while - “are you alright? And do you -- do you maybe want to get out of the rain?”

An overwrought groan is all the response he can manage. Clint grabs his arm and steers him the final stretch to the bar. It’s pretty empty inside, a couple of the regulars sitting up at the bar and a disgruntled-looking woman with a glass of white wine the only other patrons. Their shoes squelch abominably as they cross the floor to their usual table, and Bucky flops listlessly into his seat, not bothering to pick up the menu Clint has shoved in his direction.

“Just get me whatever,” he says. He’s absolutely aware that he’s being a gigantic dick here - Clint’s the target of precisely none of his frustrations, but they’re firing off all over the place and there’s heavy shrapnel flying.

“Sorry,” he adds with a tight and slightly manic smile as Clint stands to go and order. “I’m having a moment here. Give me a couple minutes and I’ll drag myself out of it.”

“No worries, no worries,” says Clint, proving his status as an all-around excellent human once again. While he’s up at the bar, Bucky does his best to take a few steadying breaths and bring his pulse down - he can feel it in his lips and the soles of his feet. Over by the bar, he can see Clint talking to the old guys, waving his hands wildly. A nasty little voice in the corner of his mind says that Clint’s talking about him, but he blocks it. It’s more likely that Clint’s trying to give him a little space, let him relax. Clint’s used to Bucky’s crises by now, and he’s right. There’s nothing to be done about any of it. They’ve got the evening to themselves and there’s nothing on the horizon that Bucky should be dealing with at this moment, so he’s just going to have a drink and eat some greasy bar food and then try for an early night. Again.

By the time Clint comes back, somehow balancing a giant plate of nachos, two bottles of beer, and a stack of onion rings the size of a monster truck tire, Bucky feels a bit more settled. He dives into the greasy carbs and makes an effort to talk normally around a mouthful of batter. Clint spills sauce on his shirt. It feels easy, normal - the end of a regular work day. After they’ve finished plowing through their food, Bucky goes up to the bar to get them another drink. When he sits down again, Clint’s expression is a little too calm, tight around the edges. Bucky’s throat feels too small.

“So,” says Clint, and Bucky tries not to flinch. “We gonna talk about it?” 

“No.” He’s having a nice evening, goddamnit. He’s relaxed. He’s not thinking about it. He’s not talking about it. He doesn’t want to. Why can’t Clint let him have his nice evening?

“Alright man.” This is worse.“Not putting any pressure on you. Just letting you know you can if you want to.” Does he want to? What would he even say? _My life is imploding, I’m in the wrong career, I think there are mice in my apartment, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in over two weeks, I feel like Pierce hates me personally, everything I touch turns to shit, I don’t even like children, and I accidentally insulted the guy at Craft Loft about fourteen different ways in under five minutes this afternoon?_ What good could saying that do him? He can imagine Clint looking at him like roadkill: sad, sure, but mainly gross.

“My life feels like it’s imploding, I’m in the wrong career, I think there are mice in my apartment and I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in over two weeks. Everything I touch turns to shit, I don’t even like children, Pierce seems to hate me personally and I don’t know why or what to do about it, and this afternoon I accidentally insulted the guy at Craft Loft about fourteen different ways in under five minutes.” Well. Fuck. There it is. Now for Clint to tell him to get his shit together and stop being so pathetic. Because he’s dealing with his feelings very maturely, he refuses to look at his friend, so he isn’t expecting the hand that pats him on the arm. He yelps, and jumps about a foot.

“Woah, sorry,” says Clint in understandable surprise. He doesn’t look like he thinks Bucky’s the most embarrassing hot mess on the planet though, which is a shock and also an error, but also appreciated. “Hey, Bucky. You know you’re putting up with a lot of shit at the moment, right? Like, I don’t wanna get all ‘Your Feelings Are Valid’ at you because okay, sure, you’re definitely a lot more stressed than, say, I would be in your position, but - your feelings are valid, alright?” This is extremely terrible. “I know if I ask if there’s anything I can do to help you’ll just say no and start worrying about being an imposition so here’s what we’re gonna do.” No. No. Clint is not staging an intervention. Things have not reached such a state that Clint Barton is staging an intervention. This is _not happening._

“This _is_ happening, sorry - and yeah, you said that out loud. I’ll try not to take it personally.” Bucky thunks his head on the table. His empty beer bottle falls sideways into his temple and clatters over.

“ _Fuck._ ”

“C’mon dude, head up. We’re gonna tackle this. Might not be able to fix everything, but you gotta let people help, yeah?” Bucky rolls his head sideways and peers unenthusiastically up at Clint with one eye. His hair’s coming out of its tie and falling over his face. The table’s slightly sticky. Clint swats him with a napkin. “Up you get, there we go, you got a pen? Wait, no, I’ll get one from the bar.”

When he sits down, he slaps a fresh napkin onto the table. “Right. Bucky, my friend, my brother, light of my life. Give me that list again.” Bucky declines, aware that he’s being pathetic and Clint’s just trying to help. “Fine, I got this. Just hear me out.”

He draws a line down the middle of the napkin and marks the columns PROBLEM and FIX. Under PROBLEM he writes:  
\- shitty apartment  
\- mice???????  
\- bad sleep (mice?)  
\- kids  
\- PIERCE  
\- Craft Guy

“Anything else?” Bucky stares at the list. Written out like that, it seems kind of manageable. There aren’t very many things on it. He sighs. “Only that I’m a fucking disaster.”

“Dude. Stop that. We’re gonna make things better. First up, I don’t want to be a dick but whatever happened with the guy in the craft store, it’s not worth fretting over. He probably has hundreds of weird customers in a week and I bet you didn’t come across half as badly as you thought so we’re going to leave that on one side, alright? Now, have you told your landlord about the mice?”

Bucky shakes his head. 

“Well, you gotta tell your landlord about the mice.”

“I don’t even know if there are mice. There’s just a scratching noise in the walls and it’s keeping me up at night and stressing me out because what if it’s mice or what if it’s not mice and I’m slowly going insane and imagining mice?” Clint’s grinning at him. 

“Man, listen to yourself. Just -- pause for a second. You wanna know what the options are here? One, you don’t tell your landlord and either there are or there aren’t mice but you don’t get any peace for worrying about the maybe-mice. Two, you tell your landlord, there are mice, and she gets rid of them, yeah? Three, you tell your landlord, there aren’t any mice, great, everyone’s happy. You want me to call her for you? Give me your phone, I’ll text her right now.”

Bucky passes it over with a nod and a feeble smile. Clint makes it sound so simple. He cuts right through all the snarled up mess in Bucky’s head and just - says things. Things that are obvious and sensible and true. It’s such a relief to admit that he’s not holding it all together quite as well as he should be right now.

“Done,” says Clint, giving the phone back and putting a check next to _mice???????_. “Next, you need a good night’s sleep. I say this with love, man, but you look like shit. When’s the last time you got more than six hours?”

“Try more than four.” Bucky has to watch Clint recoil. “Jesus Christ, how are you still functioning? Don’t answer that, I know what you’re about to say. We’re going to CVS when we head out and you’re getting some earplugs and whatever they sell for sleep over the counter, and if you don’t get at least seven hours’ sleep tonight you’re calling in sick. Agreed?” 

It’s almost more than Bucky can handle. Clint, disastrous Clint who leaves his teaching materials on the bus, Clint who went by _Plantfucker_ for their entire third year of college after he was found naked and cradling a bonsai tree after a party, Clint who somehow gets away with turning up to work in a grungy t-shirt while Bucky’s doing his best to look presentable in a button-down - Clint not only has his shit together, but he’s taking care of Bucky. 

“Yeah, okay,” he says. “Okay.” Clint looks genuinely relieved. “Thanks. You don’t have to deal with -” he waves his hands, gesturing at himself “ - all this. It’s not your problem.”

He must be looking a bit less fried, because Clint rolls his eyes. “Fuck you, man. You’re my friend. I don’t have to deal with anything, but you think I wanna watch you be miserable? You’re a good guy, Bucky, and you’re allowed to feel like shit, but you’re not allowed to shut me out because you’re feeling like shit. You had my back through all that crap with my ears in college, now it’s my turn.” Bucky wants to protest, wants to tell Clint that that was a real problem, that losing your hearing is the kind of thing someone needs support through and being bad at your job and life in general is just bullshit, but he resists. “Good. Now let’s talk about work.”

“Ugh,” says Bucky with all the eloquence he can muster. “It’s terrible and I don’t want to go back. Ever.” He picks up the napkin with the list and starts shredding the edges. Clint snatches it back off him and pins him with the kind of look he usually gives to children he finds drawing on their desks.

“You don’t hate teaching, man. Remember how much you loved being on placement? Everyone said you were a natural. Can I give you my opinion?” Bucky shrugs a yes. “You should be teaching middle school, maybe high school. This works for me - the little kids love me, and I don’t need to prepare so much, and I get by on being the fun teacher. I think you’re bored, and frustrated. Games and craft and basic addition? You’re wasted on that. It’s not that you can’t take the pressure, it’s that you’re in the wrong place.”

Even as he hears it, he knows Clint’s right. It’s both a brand new idea and something he’s felt since his first week here. But he’s had shitty jobs before. They didn’t take as much out of him as this one. Above everything else, it’s the last thing on the list that’s crushing him - the principal, Alexander Pierce. Bucky doesn’t know why, but he’s terrified of the older man, who’s had it out for him since the first day when Bucky came in with his hair down, elastic around his wrist. He says as much to Clint, who grimaces.

“Listen, you didn’t hear this from me, but the board didn’t see Pierce today to pat him on the back and give him a gold star. There’ve been a few complaints about him lately - a couple of other teachers have said things before but apparently a handful of parents are taking issue with the way he runs things now, too much pressure, unsupportive environment, too much emphasis on competition and ability rather than fostering hard work, you know. You remember that whole thing with that kid Renata? So. I don’t know. But maybe he’ll ease off on you if they’re keeping an eye on him.”

He takes a big sip of his beer. Bucky just stares at him. “Where the hell did you hear this?”

“Espionage. I’ve wiretapped his office.” Honestly, it wouldn’t come as much of a shock at this point. “No, it was Maria. I was helping her decorate the gym last night. But you don’t know anything, alright?” 

That’s easy enough to agree to. Unlike Clint, he doesn’t have easy conversational friendships with the other teachers. Clint gets up to use the restroom, leaving Bucky with the napkin list. He makes a quick note of what Clint’s said - looking at it written down all feels much better, for some reason - and stuffs it, folded, into his pocket. When Clint gets back he stands, ready for them to head off, feeling lighter than he has in a while, though somehow awkward. They’ve been friends for years now, but Bucky’s not used to vulnerability. The most he’s ever leaned on Clint for help before has been literally, on occasions born of necessity and cheap alcohol. Sure, Clint’s talked to him and he listened, but Clint’s had stuff to deal with. Real problems. Bucky’s not used to opening up, or being seen through like this. Then again, he’s not used to feeling this terrible, either. 

The rain has stopped, and they walk down the road in silence for a while. Bucky has the distinct feeling Clint has something else he wants to say, and that’s nerve-wracking, since they’ve already explored whole new realms of frankness and sensitivity in the last hour. The quiet carries them through their trip to CVS, where Clint buys himself a bottle of chewy vitamins meant for children while insisting Bucky pick up an eye mask, earplugs and some kind of over-the-counter sleeping pill. It takes them all the way to the corner where their paths diverge - a couple of minutes from Bucky’s apartment and Schrödinger’s mice, a little further to Clint’s. They come to a halt, and Bucky’s about to say something - thank you, sorry, he isn’t quite sure - when Clint puts a hand on his arm.

“Look, Bucky,” he says, sounding uncharacteristically serious, “there’s one other thing I wanna say. You don’t have to give me an answer right now - in fact I’d rather you just think about it for a little while - but. Would you consider talking to someone whose job it is to help?”

Bucky blinks at him. “Like a therapist or something?” It’s not a thing he’s ever considered because, again. His problems don’t feel real. But maybe what Clint’s saying is that that isn’t the point. Maybe the point is that he feels like shit, and he shouldn’t have to, and the why of it doesn’t matter. Clint looks a little wary, like he’s not sure how Bucky’s going to take his suggestion.

“Yeah. I mean, you can talk to me and shit, no problem, I wanna help. But they know what they’re doing, way better than I do. It’s what they’re there for, right?” Bucky nods slowly. “I saw one, you know.” Bucky didn’t know. “After all that stuff in college. He was really good. Taught me that you don’t have to be like, in a crisis before you talk to someone. So yeah, just. Think it over, okay? And let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

Clint jams his hands in his pockets and doesn’t make eye contact. Bucky has a strong desire to hug him, but he doesn’t, because they don’t do that, and there have been enough barriers broken this evening already. Next thing he knows he’ll start weeping on Clint’s shoulder, and if that happens he’ll have to exile himself to the frozen wastes of Greenland. 

“Um.” Expressing himself is _hard_. Much as he wants to, this doesn’t feel like the time to smother his emotions and sign things off with a ‘see you, man’. He tries again. “Thanks. I mean. Yeah, I’ll think about it. I’ll think about it.” The words run out, but Clint just watches him. There’s no pressure in it. How did he ever think Clint was a walking calamity? “You’re a really good friend, you know that right? I’m serious, I don’t know why you put up with my shit and I know I’m not much use to anyone right now but if there’s anything I can do to pay you back any time just let me know, yeah? I -- thanks.”

The little speech falls out of him and then trails off. In the back of his mind he thinks he should be embarrassed, but after today’s exertions the shame’s been wrung out of him. He stares at a point somewhere above Clint’s eyebrows. Clint hugs him, and he tenses up, but Clint just gives him a tight squeeze and claps him on the shoulder. “You’re gonna be fine, alright?”

That would have sounded ludicrous and patronizing and impossible when they left the school earlier. Now, Bucky finds himself nodding, the ball of sick tension that’s been writhing in him all day stilling its frantic exploration of his chest cavity. “Yeah, maybe. Thanks. See you tomorrow?”

The little bedrock of steadiness stays with him down the road and up the stairs outside his apartment. He can do this. There’s a crumpled napkin in his pocket that has some of the answers and a little sprout of calm in his mind that might be the key to finding more if he nurtures it. It’s not even late yet, a little before 8 p.m. He’s going to clean his tiny galley kitchen, take a shower, and watch something calming, set himself up for a good night’s sleep and try again tomorrow. 

When he opens his front door and sees a tail vanish around the skirting board, he doesn’t even freak out.

*

It’s getting late by the time Steve rounds the corner to his street. The bag of groceries in his left hand has been knocking against his shin for the past twenty minutes and his shoulders ache from the pull of his heavy backpack. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he fishes cross-body with his free hand, yanking it out just in time to see that it’s Natasha calling. Then it dies.

“Stupid goddamn -- ugh,” he mutters at its lifeless screen. It’s been flaking out on him for months now, dropping dead at anything from 20 to 55% battery life with no warning. He needs to buy a new one. And get his boots fixed - it might have stopped raining by now but his socks are sodden from where water seeped through the cracks in the soles. It’s hard enough on a good day to look like a credibly intimidating person with a frame built out of toothpicks and stubbornness, and today has been no kind of good. He keeps going over how he dealt with the panicky guy with the bun, and his feelings have moved from annoyance with the man to self-flagellation. 

The rain’s starting up again as he makes it to the front door, fumbling his ratty bag off one shoulder and around to the front to hunt for his keys. The drip from the overhang goes straight down his collar as usual, and he hisses like a cat. The thought of hot tea cheers him a little as he trudges up the stairs, socks squelching with every step. Shoes off, kettle on, sweatpants, big socks, he thinks, unlocking the apartment door. Half an hour’s respite.

“Steve!” yells Natasha from the bathroom. “Where did you put my fucking tweezers?”

It’s a fair and reasonable question, despite the delivery. Sam’s the tidy one, but he has his own (tiny) en suite and out of Steve and Natasha, it falls to Steve to ensure that the bigger bathroom doesn’t degenerate into a biohazard. Right now though, Steve sincerely doesn’t know or care whether they’re in the mug with the toothbrushes or in transit between here and Lesotho.

When he doesn’t immediately respond, Natasha starts rambling through the open door, her patter interspersed with the clattering of various baskets being upended.

“Steve? Tweezers, any ideas? I’ve got an ingrown the size of Everest and my eyebrows are trying to colonize my forehead so if you’ve got any bright ideas about where you might have put-- there you are!”

With that, she appears around the doorframe, pink-cheeked and triumphant, brandishing the object of her quest. Her expression changes into something less warlike the minute she sees Steve, who’s struggling out of his jacket with the distinct air of a wet cat.

“--the hell happened to you?”

“Ugh,” replies Steve, dropping bag and jacket in a soggy pile on top of his offending boots. The bag makes a clunking sound. “Got more milk. I’ll put it away later.” He starts wrestling out of his shirt, which is at that unpleasant stage of being damp enough to stick to him and also body temperature.

“Go change, I’ll make your tea.” Tea is Natasha’s answer to everything and after two years’ cohabitation it’s rubbed off onto Steve. From inside the straightjacket of his shirt he half-laughs, despite himself. “You want to talk about it or watch something mindless?”

“Is there an Option C? Get into bed and stay there for a month?”

“Nope, definitely no Option C. Get back out here in ten minutes or your tea’ll get cold.”

“Ugh,” says Steve again, and slams his door.

Fifteen minutes later, the door crashes open and something warm lands on his bare back.

“Up,” barks Natasha. “Put that sweater on and come out of there or I’ll sit on you.”

It’s not as empty a threat as Steve would like, so he peels his face out of the pillow and shrugs on the navy hoodie with minimal grace or gratitude.

“Right then,” says Natasha as he stumbles out and thumps onto the sofa with all the weight his skinny frame can muster. “Cooking show or conversation?”

“Nothing to talk about,” he grunts. He doesn’t actually feel bad enough to want to talk it out. “Just a regular shitty day, and then I got rained on. My boots are leaking.”

“Alright. Bake Off or Chef’s Table?” She starts scrolling through their list, but Steve can feel her eyes - not on him, exactly, but he knows what she’s doing. Sam calls it interrogation, and he’s not far wrong. Steve’s watched enough thrillers to know that it’s a fairly common technique to let the subject hang himself, give him space to tie his own noose just to fill the silence, and that’s exactly what she’s doing. He wants to resist, to deny her the satisfaction of being right, but it really was a shitty fucking day, and it’s chewing at his peace of mind. Steve doesn’t much feel like looking at her while he bares his frustrated soul, so he grabs the giant blue and white cushion and curls over it, hiding.

“I’m never going back to work,” he mutters into his cushion.

“Okay, that sounds reasonable.” Natasha’s voice becomes muffled half way through the sentence as she dumps the big blanket over his head. “Good practical solution to all your woes.”

“Fuck you.”

They sit in silence for a couple of minutes, episode trailers starting up every few seconds. Steve contemplates the merits of a) staying in the blanket cocoon for however long it takes for him to transform into a person who isn’t three parts elbows to one part fighting spirit or b) venting about his shitty day. He’s just leaning towards option b) when he hears the front door open, and the indistinct sounds of Sam dumping his bags.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he moans, and rocks gently back and forth. 

Sam’s friendly greeting cuts off.

“Is that Steve?” he asks, and pokes the blankets. Steve asserts his presence with yet another groan. He does not come out of his nest. Natasha jostles him cheerfully. He curls himself even more tightly into his den of despair and soft furnishings.

“He’s having some kind of breakdown. I was just about to get him to explain when you came crashing back in and now he’s reverted to drama.”

Sam sits down on Steve’s other side with a faintly exasperated sigh. The sofa’s a tight fit for all three of them when nobody’s lost all defined mass and become an indistinct mass of fabric. Steve’s pinned between them now. There’s no escape. This blanket is his shroud. The sofa is his final resting place. He will never leave. This is acceptable. Let him die here. Someone should put up a plaque outside the house: Here Lies Steven Grant Rogers, 1993-2018, Victim Of Circumstance And A Long-Haired Asshole.

“You doing okay?” Steve grunts in response. Sam taking him seriously is an affront to his integrity. A man should be allowed to wallow in melodrama on occasion without being forced to suffer the sincerity of his friends’ concern. On the other hand - they’re good friends. They’ll let him bitch, and then snap him out of it. He sticks his head out from under his fleecy burial cloth. The static sticks his hair to his forehead. Natasha ruffles it, so he tells her to fuck off, but his heart’s not in it.

“He says he doesn’t want to talk about it,” says Natasha, who has one foot up on their improvised packing crate coffee table and appears to have started painting her toenails while he was undercover.

“Alright then,” says Sam. Why must he be so agreeable, thinks Steve. He considers diving back under the blanket, but decides to be mature.

“Fine. It was just. It wasn’t anything. I’m being dramatic.” A painful confession, and almost definitely redundant. They hum in disbelieving stereo.

“Had a weird customer.” Might as well. They aren’t going to judge him. At worst, Natasha will give him shit for overthinking things and Sam will say something wise and then laugh at him.

“Like the feather guy?” asks Sam. Despite himself, Steve snorts. “No, luckily I didn’t have to listen to anybody’s niche sexual interests today. This guy was just -- I don’t know, he was in a state about something, really stressed, and kept doing the exact wrong thing, and I could see him spiraling, but he pissed me off and I don’t know, I tried to rein it in and not snap at him but I think I made him feel worse and I feel pretty guilty but also like, how is that my fault? I was calm, I was professional, I didn’t snark, and he’s standing there like a kicked puppy and he tries to apologize and then runs out of there and -- anyway. It’s been bothering me all day.”

He stares straight at the TV screen, where a pair of disembodied hands are doing something complicated and beautiful with a piece of translucent pink fish. The other two don’t say anything.

“It’s -- Sam, you know what you said the other week? About how you guys are used to me and you cut me slack when I’m being difficult but I’m less prickly around you both because of that? That hit pretty hard.” What a horrible confession. It’s true though. However kindly meant, Sam’s words have been spinning around his head, making him more aware of how he interacts with people. And of course Sam’s right. Steve _knows_ he’s always on the defensive, too quick to spot a slight and too slow to let things go. “And then something like this happens and some tall guy with a stupid ponytail comes in freaking out about God knows what and tells me how to do my job and gets under my skin and I get caught up and I make his day worse and it’s. I don’t know. I’m probably making too big a thing of it, but I feel like normal people don’t _do_ this, right?” 

Natasha goes to cut in but Sam puts a hand up to stop her. Steve doesn’t continue, though. They’ve had this conversation before, usually after a few drinks, and as many times as Steve grumbles about his shit job and Phil and his terrible books, and bewails his inability to act like a normal person, they knock him down, drag him out of his mood, don’t let him fester in it.

“Normal people don’t go around causing strangers to have nervous breakdowns because someone makes them feel short and bad at their job,” he says, knowing he sounds like a sullen child. Sam risks slinging an arm around his bony shoulders. “Steve, who are these ‘normal people’ you keep talking about?”

“You. Natasha. Everyone else.” 

At this, Natasha laughs outright, waggling her emerald-painted toes at him. “Yeah Steve, sure. We’re totally normal. You’re the odd one out of a frustrated retail worker, a freelance cryptographer, and a BASE-jumping paramedic. What definition of ‘normal’ are you working with?”

“That was one time!”

“Sure, but you never shut up about how it was the greatest experience of your life so it’s part of who you are now. Core part of your identity.”

Sam pelts a small cushion at Natasha, who swats it away so it hits the TV and they all freeze, horrified. It wobbles, but doesn’t fall. Sam speaks into the relieved silence.

“Team 2 got called out because a guy jammed his dick in some lifesize dummy at a haunted house today.” There’s a beat, and then the three of them explode with laughter. “He couldn’t get it out again because of - swelling - and they had to shut the whole exhibit down.” 

Natasha’s helpless, gasping out “Why?” over and over and trying not to hiccup. Sam keeps trying to elaborate on the story but every time he gets to the key parts he dissolves into hysterics. Between them, Steve catches his breath and thinks yeah, alright, maybe things aren’t exactly going his way at the minute, but at least he’s never been hospitalized with his junk wedged in a PVC vampire. It could be worse.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of Espressosaur's fantastic pieces is in this chapter - with two more in the last one! 
> 
>  
> 
> slight warning for blood and injury in this chapter - it's nothing major, just run of the mill first aid stuff, but it does take up quite a lot of the word count. more in end notes.

Bucky finishes collecting the little plastic counters scattered all over the desks in his classroom as the children clatter out of the door for lunch. His morning classes all went smoothly, with the biggest drama coming when he wrote on the whiteboard with a permanent marker. The kids had been shocked for a moment, and then awed when he drew over it in regular ink and erased them both. It doesn’t take much to impress a six-year-old. As he heads out into the corridor, he feels reasonably calm about the rest of the day - he’s planned all his academic classes through to the end of the semester, so all he needs to do is read over it before the kids come back in from recess and put a few things up on the board.

“Hey Barnes!” It’s Rumlow. Bucky tenses up, because Rumlow’s an asshole with no redeeming features, and specifically because he’s Pierce’s pet asshole. “You doing the Christmas Fayre bullshit with the kids this afternoon?”

Bucky’s about to tell him off for swearing in the corridors - Jesus Christ if Clint can keep a civil mouth on him around children, anybody can - when the rest of the question slides into his conscious understanding and he grinds to a halt. Oh God. It’s happening again.

“Isn’t that next Thursday?” The question comes out faint, because all of a sudden he knows full well that it is very definitely not next Thursday. It’s this Thursday. Today. In ninety minutes’ time, he and Clint have to wrangle their third graders through two hours of festive fun and games. Rumlow’s expression turns from light snark to full sinister delight.

“Oh, Bucky-boy, don’t tell me you forgot?” Bucky has a powerful urge to punch him in the face, but even though he’s a couple of inches taller and in at least respectable shape, he has no idea how to fight. Rumlow’s a Crossfit obsessive without an ounce of fat on him, and also, they’re in a school corridor.

“No,” he says, cringing internally when it comes out sounding shaky. “Just realized I don’t have enough craft stuff. Gonna have to make a quick run to the store.”

Rumlow obviously doesn’t believe a word of it, which aggravates Bucky more than it ought to, seeing as he’s lying through his teeth. Rumlow just has that effect on him, though. The man swaggers around the school snapping at the children and making his fellow teachers uncomfortable.

“Right,” Rumlow says, grin feral and predatory. “Guess I’ll see you around, then.”

He saunters off, leaving Bucky caught in a tornado of panicky thoughts until Clint barrels into view, grey-faced.

“We forgot Christmas,” he whisper-shouts, before grabbing Bucky by the arm and towing him into the first free classroom. “What the hell are we going to do?”

“Uh,” says Bucky. He casts about for ideas, but there’s very little to suggest festive cheer in the room. “Snowmen. Baubles. Trees? Holly. A star. Fucking hell, Clint, why are we like this? Are we cursed to fuck up every holiday celebration in the calendar?”

“I’m googling,” says Clint, and oh, Bucky should do that too.

“What did you search?” he says, because his mother was right, he doesn’t have an ounce of common sense.

“Easy Christmas crafts, dude, Jesus.”

“Oh.” That’s reasonable. “I’ll search something else.”

The two of them stand there like morons for a couple of minutes, poking at their phones in confusion. Clint starts up a few videos with perky festive jingles, then shuts them down with variations on a swift “fuck off, no”. Bucky’s having no luck whatsoever. 

They aren’t allowed to give the kids food, and thank god because the one thing he and Clint would be worse equipped to deal with than thirty eight and nine year olds is thirty sugar-powered eight and nine year olds, but at least half the activities cropping up are edible. Bucky would really like to make his own gingerbread house. Most of what’s left seems to involve things like manual dexterity and following instructions, both of which are almost definitely beyond the abilities of most of the children. Possibly beyond him, too.

“Fuck it,” says Clint, seconds before Bucky gives in to the desire to scream. “Let’s just go to the craft store and see what’s there?”

This seems like a terrible idea. They should make a strategy. Head out with a battle plan. Something like that.

“Sure, fuck it,” Bucky replies, because he’s got nothing better. “Can we go to Elsie’s on the way back? There are gingerbread trees in the window. With icing.”

Clint lights up. Snacks make everything better.

 

The second he walks into Craft Loft, Bucky recognizes the man behind the counter and has to fight to stop himself from sprinting right back out into the street again, Christmas or no Christmas. It’s the prickly guy from the last of his and Clint’s creative aberrations, the guy who accidentally proved to be the catalyst for - well. A lot of important changes he’s set in motion in the last six weeks or so. He doesn’t leg it, because he’s trying to avoid turning everything into a catastrophe now, but also because the guy - Steve, Bucky thinks, and immediately wonders why that’s stayed lodged in his brain when the _date of the school’s Christmas Craft Fayre hadn’t_ \- is wearing a terrible Christmas hat in the same ghastly blue and orange of his uniform, and also what appears to be body glitter. It’s very distracting. He tries not to stare.

The Steve guy looks as if he might recognize Bucky too, judging by the way he twitches out of his slump and into something stiffer-spined. Or maybe it’s just the difference between an empty store and professionalism. 

“Right,” says Clint, oblivious to the psychodrama occurring in his immediate vicinity, “what in hell do we do now?” He glares down the aisle of painting materials as though it’s a threat to him, which, Bucky supposes, it is. Also potentially their salvation.

“Fucked if I know.” Bucky wanders over to investigate the Obviously Festive part of the store, but it’s all tinsel and baubles and overpriced kits for making complicated decorations. It doesn’t inspire any ideas, either.

“Hey dude,” Clint’s voice comes from just behind him and he turns, but Clint isn’t talking to him. Steve, fine, he’s calling him Steve in his head, this is perfectly normal, raises his head and curves an eyebrow in a way that’s just this side of supercilious. “You know anything about crafts?”

What a fucking question, thinks Bucky, as Steve brings the other eyebrow up to join its companion. Bucky wonders what magical force propels Clint away from the emotion of shame with such power.

“We’ve got thirty children needing a Christmas craft activity in less than an hour’s time, we forgot about it, and we can’t think of anything. Any chance you’ve got a suggestion?”

“Did you try the internet?” says Steve, drier than dust. “I hear there are lots of ideas available on there.”

Bucky tries to slink into an aisle where he’ll hopefully no longer be visible, while maintaining his view of both Clint and Steve. Clint looks unabashed.

“Yeah, we had a look, but there’s just too much on there, and all of it’s Mom Bloggers with loads of time on their hands and maybe three kids to manage.”

Steve’s veneer of cynical distaste cracks a little.

“Ah yeah, we get our share of Pinterest moms in here looking for tiny glue guns. Pretty sure the kids aren’t making most of the stuff they think they’re doing as joint craft activities.” Clint grins at him. Steve half-smiles back. Bucky continues to skulk. “Don’t do anything with glitter,” says Steve, gesturing expansively at himself. “I’ve only been unpacking ornaments this morning and it’ll be coming out of my pores for a week. How old are the kids?”

Clint continues to chat easily to Steve, discussing felt and scissors and the risks of letting them near paint and talking about how Steve used to do volunteer work with an after-school club. Meanwhile Bucky tries to make it look as though he’s deeply absorbed by a cheery red and green display promising ‘Fun for All the Family’ rather than eavesdropping because he feels too uncomfortable to join the conversation, and does some breathing exercises like his new mindfulness app says he should. It’s not so bad. Steve probably doesn’t remember him. There’s no reason he’d have made a particularly strong impression - it’s only in his head that he’s a unique sort of disaster.

His heart rate is settling into something steady and un-alarming by the time Clint wraps up his conversation and sticks his head into the aisle where Bucky’s skulking. “Steve says we can make Christmas trees out of cupcake wrappers and popsicle sticks and also they’ve got that sticky paper you lick and make those loopy paper chain things out of. You reckon that’d be enough?”

“Sure,” says Bucky, because fine, yeah, they can string that out. If it comes to it they can sing some Christmas songs and play hangman. It’ll be fine.

*

Steve feels grateful for his moment of respite when the clueless pair wander off into the aisles of the store. He very definitely does not spend it mulling over the way the taller one - and how much taller, Steve remembers - wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. It probably wasn’t intentional. There’s no reason he’d have picked up on Steve’s antipathy the last time they’d met, he reassures himself. Chances are, Steve hadn’t made an impression at all. He’d seemed pretty distracted. There’s a funny little hint of bitterness attached to the thought, and he doesn’t look at it too directly. 

His musings are interrupted by a sharp cracking sound, and a simultaneous “Fuck, Clint!” and “Aw Jesus!”, then a scraping noise and hushed whispering. He’s just rounding the counter to investigate when the blond guy pops his head around the end of the shelves, looking stricken.

“Uh, I’m really sorry man, but -” His arms are piled high with stuff and - were his pants flecked with green earlier? “I dropped a thing and it smashed.”

Steve chokes down the urge to snap and summons his best customer service persona. “Why don’t you put all that down on the counter?”

He avoids jostling - Clint, maybe? The other guy doesn’t look like a Clint - as he passes him, and more narrowly avoids turning to throttle him when he sees the scene of chaos that’s taken over aisle two.

The floor is speckled with emerald paint, broken glass and, to Steve’s horror, blood. The source of the blood is kneeling amid the carnage, left hand cupped to his chest. His palm is filled with an alarming amount of blood, but he’s still scrabbling around with the right, trying to find the larger shards.

“Jesus Christ,” yelps Steve, “stop that! You wanna slice up your other hand too?”

The guy stops and glances up at Steve like he doesn’t quite understand. There’s green on the knees of his pants and all over his right hand, and he’s really bleeding quite heavily. He looks absolutely panicked.

“Get up, for God’s sake, I’ll clean it up. Come with me, I’ll show you where you can get some of that mess off you.” The guy doesn’t respond, but starts unfolding himself from the floor right as Clint comes back around the corner.

“Fuck me, Bucky, you’re bleeding!” _Give that man a medal, _thinks Steve, already making a list of next steps. First off, get Bucky into the bathroom so he can clean off some of the blood and paint and general air of calamity - what the hell kind of a name is ‘Bucky’ for an adult? - then clean up the mess and let Clint pay for his stuff. He’ll have to keep Bucky around to fill out the incident report forms, too. Phil can do that, he thinks to himself.__

____

__

For the thousandth time in his life, Steve sends up a quick thank you to his Ma for giving him an excellent head in a real crisis. He feels remarkably calm as he asks Clint to please stay at the scene of the crime for a moment, and leads Bucky through to the back. 

“Bathroom’s the second door on the left,” he says shortly. “Come find me out front when you’re done, afraid you’ll have to fill out some paperwork before you go. Try not to make too much of a mess, yeah?” 

That sounded dickish. He tries to soften it with a smile but it feels wrong on his face. Bucky hasn’t said anything at all, and Steve feels like he should apologize for something, but he’s not sure what, and anyway - there’s nobody covering the paint-covered floor right now. 

“See you in a minute,” he says, and goes into the back room. 

As expected, Phil is in there, munching on a Nilla wafer and reading. He doesn’t look up when Steve opens the door. 

“Phil,” says Steve. 

“Mmm?” says Phil, reaching for another wafer and still not looking up. 

“Phil,” says Steve, much more sharply. “Someone’s smashed a jar of paint all over aisle two, and the guy’s friend’s cut his hand pretty badly trying to clear it up. I showed him to the bathroom but he’s gonna have to fill out an incident report. Could you handle that while I go do cleanup?”

Phil’s mouth is full of wafer and he looks a little glazed over. Clearly _THE DEVIL IN THE WALLS_ has had him under quite the spell. He swallows his mouthful of sugary nothing and shakes his head slowly, like a cow battling flies. 

“Oh, I’ll go clean up,” he says slowly. “You’re not too good with chemicals, right?” 

The thing is, Steve _isn’t_ too good with chemicals. They irritate his lungs and his sensitive eyes, and any other time he’d be both surprised and impressed that Phil remembers this. Right now though - he’d happily take itchy hands and a rough throat over patching up the sad, dazed-looking entity that’s now wandered into his workplace and wreaked havoc twice. But he can’t really protest, and also Sam would murder him, so he just nods and thanks Phil, who shoves one last wafer into his mouth and shambles out, cheeks bulging. 

Left in the office-slash-stock-room-slash-supply-closet, Steve takes a moment to despair. Today had been going so smoothly. He’d had time to get some portfolio work done at the counter, and Natasha had swung by with tea, a flyer about some art fair down by the river starting tomorrow night, and a proposal that they get takeout tonight. And now there’s a man bleeding heavily in the staff bathroom, glass all over the floor, and insurance paperwork to be filled out. He sighs deeply, and turns his attention to the tatty yellow ringbinder that contains all of Craft Loft’s official documents. 

Just as he’s yanking the incident report forms from their shredded plastic sleeve, there’s a tap on the door. 

“Sorry,” comes a voice from the other side, sounding like it means it, “do you have a first aid kit or anything in there?” 

“Hang on!” Steve dumps the files back on the desk, haphazard, and scans the room for the green box. It’s on the top shelf of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase at the back of the room, because of course it is. He momentarily contemplates the perks of drinking the cleaning fluids before his crisis management brain kicks in, overriding both pride and melodrama as he opens the door. 

“It’s up - fuck.” The guy’s got most of the mess off his skin, but there’s still a lot of blood on his left hand. “Come on, the light’s better in here. Does it feel like there’s anything in the cuts?” 

Steve reaches for the guy’s hand instinctively, hoping to get a better look at it, then pulls back. He doesn’t look at his face as he turns away and walks back into the room. 

“No, I think I got it all out,” says the guy from somewhere behind him. He sounds vague, maybe a little in shock. “I just need something to cover it with.” 

“Here, I can do it,” Steve says, turning. “Can you get that green box up there?” 

If Steve’s a little proud of how casually he says this, nobody needs to know, right? Except - the guy’s eyes widen a fraction, and Steve can feel himself flush. Just a little, just enough to make the sour defensiveness rise in his throat. He fights it down - now is not the time - grabbing a pen as the other man reaches down the first aid kit, injured hand cradled to his chest. 

Taking the box from him, Steve realizes he hasn’t asked the guy’s name. “I’m Steve, by the way.” Which, okay, if he's remembering right, the guy already knows. 

“Bucky,” says Bucky, proving that Steve had heard correctly. “Well, James. But I’ve gone by Bucky since I was a kid. Lot of people in my family called James, and then there was another one in my class at school, so it stuck and - sorry. I’ll shut up.” 

The words come out as a nervous babble. Steve snaps his head up and really _looks_ at Bucky. His face is pale, eyes big and mouth tight. 

“Hey, you’re okay, you’re gonna be fine. Sit down a minute, let me take a look.” Bucky sinks into the chair, looking tense and a little shaky. “You want a cookie? Phil won’t notice.” 

“Thanks. I’m okay, really. Just need a band-aid for this, I’ve gotta get back to work.” 

Judging by the amount of blood there was earlier Steve doubts that Bucky’s heading to the school after this, but he keeps that to himself as he snaps open the clasp on the first aid kit. 

“Gonna take more than a band-aid. Alright, let me see,” he says. Bucky uncurls his hand and lays it palm-up on the table, fingers bent. There’s fresh blood smeared across his palm, a bright thread of it running down his wrist and staining the cuff of his shirt. “Can you straighten your fingers?” 

He tries, and gasps. Blood wells up out of the gash, deeper than Steve thought, right across the palm and into the pad of muscle beside Bucky’s thumb. There are a few smaller nicks too, little vibrant flecks of red that mark his index and middle fingers. 

“Yowch,” says Steve as he pulls on a pair of nitrile gloves. 

Bucky replies with an “It’s fine, really” but it doesn’t sound all that fine, seeing as his voice has gone thin and slightly high. “You got any painkillers?” 

Steve always has painkillers, but it’s in the paperwork somewhere that he’s not meant to go giving medicines to people as he’s not a doctor. Craft Loft Stores Inc. doesn’t want to be taken to court because one of their employees put someone into anaphylactic shock. On the other hand, withholding a couple of Tylenol from a man with a sizeable palm laceration for reasons of hypothetical liability seems pretty cruel. 

“Um,” he says. The guy doesn’t seem like the type to sue, whatever that means. “You’re definitely not allergic?” 

“Nope, only nickel and dragon fruit.” Bucky takes the pill bottle and moves to unscrew the cap with his bloody hand. Steve swipes it back. 

“I’ve got it,” he says, voice coming out softer than planned as he passes Bucky the now-open bottle. Steve wants to look away from Bucky and his little genuine smile. The moment passes as he tries to choke down a couple of pills without a drink. 

“I can get you some water?” he tries, but Bucky waves his hand and finishes the undignified swallowing with a horrible rasping noise and a muttered apology. Steve goes back to sorting through the first aid kit, searching for inspiration. He’s pretty sure he shouldn’t just stick the biggest band-aid they have over it. He’s pretty sure Bucky needs to take his hand to the hospital. It hadn’t seemed that bad when he’d offered to do it himself. 

“I’m not sure I’ve got the right stuff here,” he admits. “It’s a pretty basic first aid kit. You might be better taking it to the hospital, you know.” Bucky winces, and at the same time his phone starts buzzing. He picks it up. The screen says ‘Clint’. 

“Hey, yeah, I’m fine, I’ll be back as soon as I --- oh. Okay. You sure you’ll be okay? Oh thank fuck, bless her. Yeah, okay. Might need to take it to the hospital, it’s still bleeding. No, no. I’ll get the bus if I go. Yeah, sure. I’ll keep you updated. Tell Wanda she’s a star. Thanks so much.” He hangs up, looking relieved. 

“Clint says they don’t need me to go back in. One of the assistants is gonna cover for me. You think I should go to the hospital?” Steve doesn’t know. He thinks about it for a second, and then has an idea. 

“My roommate’s a paramedic. Let me give him a call, I’ll see what he thinks.” 

“Hey it’s me.” There’s no response from the other end of the line. “Steve.” 

“Mrmph,” says Sam, and oh shit, he’s on nights this week. “W’sgoingon?” 

“Didn’t mean to wake you, I’m sorry.” Sam grunts again, then Steve hears him sit up and exhale loudly. 

“Better be a good reason you’re bothering me, Steve. ‘M tired.” 

“Got a customer in the store with a nasty cut. I told him I could fix it up but it looks kinda deep.” He shoots a glance at Bucky, who’s prodding the fleshy part of his palm and going pale again. Blood keeps oozing up out of the gash. Steve taps the desk to get his attention, and shakes his head. Bucky looks sheepish. 

“Alright,” says Sam. “Where is it, what did he cut it on, is it clean?” 

Steve tries to shove down the guilt at how tired Sam sounds as he explains the basics to Steve. It all sounds so obvious when someone else is telling him the steps - apply pressure, try to get the bleeding to stop, clean it, cover it with a sterile dressing. It’s possible that his head isn’t quite as cool in a crisis as he’s always believed. In his peripheral vision, Bucky’s jabbing at his hand again. 

“One second, Sam,” Steve interrupts. “Hey, you need to stop doing that. Applying pressure’ll help stop the bleeding, poking it won’t. Here, use one of these.” He tears the packaging on a sterile bandage and shoves it across the desk. Bucky looks embarrassed but grateful. “Sorry, I’m back.” 

“You sound like my mother. Who’s the patient?” 

Steve grimaces. “He’s a teacher at the school up the road. Came in here in a hurry to get supplies and it didn’t go so well. His friend dropped the paint and then instead of asking if we had anything to clear up he started scrabbling around like a dumbass trying to pick it up. Come on, that’s fair,” he shoots in response to Bucky's outraged squeak. 

“Can’t be suffering too much if you’re giving him shit like that already,” Sam yawns, and Steve doesn’t know if he’s imagining the slight reprimand in Sam’s tone but he feels bad anyway. Bucky’s hurt, and he doesn’t know Steve, and Steve’s being rude to him. Again.. “Alright then. Doesn’t sound like anybody’s about to bleed out so I’m gonna go back to sleep if you think you’ve got it covered. Please don’t call back in the next thirty seconds asking me which way round to put the dressing, okay?” 

“Think we’re good here, thanks. And sorry again.” He’ll make Sam dinner. Pay for his takeout. Do his laundry. Something. 

“Mmm. ‘Sfine. Was an actual problem this time. See you later.” 

Steve turns back to Bucky, who has the wad of lint clasped dutifully between his hands and mild affront on his face. “Dumbass?” 

“You picked up glass with your bare hands, cut yourself, and then kept on. You saying that’s smart?” Shit, why is he so fucking rude whenever he’s feeling defensive? “Sorry. That was uncalled for. Let’s take a look at the bleeding?” Bucky peels the pad away from his palm. The blood’s oozed to a trickle, which Sam said was a good sign. “You want me to clean it or you wanna do it yourself?” 

Bucky takes the little sachet that Steve’s holding out and sluices it over the biggest cut. Bloody water drips into the plastic tray and he dries off his hand. 

“Hold it for a bit longer, see if we can get the bleeding to stop completely.” Bucky grunts agreement and they settle into a silence that’s frayed at the edges, but not unbearable. Steve starts reading over the incident forms. It seems pretty straightforward - he just has to describe what happened and the steps he took, get Bucky’s contact details, and have him sign it. 

They’ve been sitting like that for a couple of minutes when Bucky speaks. “I guess it was pretty dumb.” Steve starts and stares at him. He’s smiling a bit, embarrassed. It softens his face, brings out little crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “I panicked, I guess. Didn’t think it through.” 

“Yeah,” says Steve. “It’s fine though. Just an accident. Sorry you got hurt.” 

“No, I’m sorry. Made a mess of your store and now you’re stuck back here doing first aid and paperwork.” Steve thinks maybe he doesn’t mind so much. He takes another look at Bucky’s injury. The bleeding has finally stopped, thank God, so he sets about putting a big dressing on it. Bucky’s hand is warm through the thin layer of the gloves, and he barely winces as Steve inexpertly patches him up. 

“Thanks,” he says when Steve’s finished wrapping a wholly unnecessary bandage around it to ensure the dressing stays in place. “Should we do that form?” 

Steve groans, because he hates paperwork with a burning passion he usually reserves for objectionable politicians and admitting weakness, but he picks up the pen and they start to tackle it. It doesn’t take long to fill out the sheet. When they get to the end Bucky looks over to him and smiles shyly and oh, he really does have a nice smile. 

“Mind if I stay here for a few more minutes? You don’t need to stay, I’m fine, just could do with a pause before I head off.” 

Steve finds he doesn’t mind at all, which is odd, all things considered. “Phil’s covering the floor for now, I can stick around back here. Got the rest of those ornaments to unpack anyway.” 

They stay there in near-silence for a while, the only sounds coming from the chink of fragile glass and the rustle of packaging. Steve finds it peaceful, somehow - it’s rare that he spends any time around people other than Phil, with his infuriating munching and page-turning, without chatting. Sam and Natasha are usually talking, either to him or over his head. Bucky’s phone vibrates a couple of times, and Steve takes the opportunity to glance at him. He seems a bit less shaken now, with some color coming back into his cheeks. Of course, he looks up and catches Steve looking. Steve considers the various merits of pretending he wasn’t looking at all, and then decides to brazen it out. What follows is essentially a staring match, Bucky showing a startling resemblance to a deer in the headlights and Steve wondering what genetic defect is refusing to let him cede. He casts around for a topic to break the weird deadlock and says the first thing that comes into his head. 

“Dragon fruit allergy’s pretty weird. Don’t think I’ve ever even had dragon fruit. How’d you find that out?” 

Allergies. As a conversation topic. And he’s managed to call Bucky weird. Fucking _hell_ , why is he allowed out in public? Bucky doesn’t appear to mind though. He blinks a few times, and his mouth twitches with something that isn’t pain, like he recognizes the strangeness of the situation and is glad that Steve’s making an effort, even if it’s complete crap. 

“Hm? Oh, right, yeah, it was bad, I was meeting someone’s parents for the first time and they’d made this really nice dinner and dessert was fruit salad and my mouth swelled up and my whole face started itching and his mom ended up driving me to the ER.” He’s rambling again, but it appeals to Steve, the way his discomfort comes out as openness. It’d be better if neither of them was on edge, of course, but - Bucky’s talkativeness is so different to his own prickly exterior. 

“What’d your date think of it?” This is already an odd conversation. Steve decides he might as well lean into it. Bucky’s face does something cryptic that might be hinting at embarrassment. 

“Uh,” he says, and he’s definitely a bit pink, “this was in high school. But yeah, he broke up with me the next day. It was pretty mortifying, I was a real cocky kid, had an image to maintain, and then the next day I go into school with like - my mouth still all swollen and puffy and I see him in the parking lot so I go over to apologize and give him a thank you note for his parents. And then he was all, okay no, this isn’t working out, I’m done, and I was _so_ shocked because like, I wasn’t meant to be the kind of person who gets dumped?” He shakes his head at his past self, flashing a real grin that shows off a crooked front tooth as he does so. It’s easy enough for Steve to picture a teenaged version of Bucky, doing his damnedest to convince everyone that he’s the coolest kid in school and half-convincing himself too, but still the kind of guy who writes thank you notes to his date’s parents. “I’m over it now though.” 

“Hell of a story,” says Steve, not sure if it actually is or not. It feels like one. “Definitely cooler than finding out you’re allergic to walnuts at your own birthday party. Which I did.” Bucky looks sort of horrified. “I was five, I don’t really remember it. Anyway.” He trails off. There’s not much further this conversation can go. “How’s your hand doing?” 

Bucky flexes his fingers experimentally. Judging by his expression, it hurts pretty bad. “It’s fine,” he tries, but Steve’s face must betray his doubt because Bucky adds, “Sore, yeah, but I’ll live. Clint texted and said the nurse over at the school says she can take a look at it and see if I need to go to the hospital, so I’m gonna head back there in a second and get her opinion. Thanks, by the way. You’ve been great. That’s twice now I’ve come in here and fucked things up.” 

Steve’s a little surprised that Bucky’s decided to acknowledge their first disastrous meeting this late on. Something in his chest twists unpleasantly. “Oh man, that was - you remember that?” 

Bucky shrugs. “Turned out to be kind of a big day for me.” His voice has taken on a brittle edge again, the ease that he’d developed over the previous ten minutes or so visibly seeping out of him. The thing in Steve’s chest does a sickening lurch. He doesn’t understand what Bucky’s talking about but it’s probably his fault. He needs to apologize. 

“I was a jerk.” Well. That’s not an apology but it’s the truth. Bucky flinches in surprise. “I spent ages thinking about it. I’m sorry. I was having a shitty day and you were obviously stressed and I was a jerk.” 

“No, fuck, I wasn’t fishing for an apology or anything, I was - look, I came in and blundered about like an asshole because I was freaking out about a thousand things and - yeah okay you were a little short with me but I was _so rude_ and like - anyway I’m trying to get my shit together now.” 

Steve needs to say something now. From where he’s sitting it seems like he and Bucky had kind of similar days back whenever it was. Halloween. What would Natasha do? What would Sam say? There’s no tea and he doesn’t have their ability to pick the right words. He only has his own blunt instrument mouth and maladaptive empathy skills. 

As if summoned by Steve’s emotional incompetence, the door opens and Phil walks in. “All sorted outside,” says his improbable _deus ex machina_ , somehow failing to notice the heavily bandaged interloper sitting in his chair until he’s halfway across the room. “Oh! How are you doing?” Bucky’s still looking pretty grey and rattled, and doesn’t answer. Steve leaps in to save him, picking up the capped pen where he’d left it on top of the completed form. 

“We’re fine, Phil, but could you give us a minute to finish up the paperwork? I’ll take over when Bucky’s gone.” Phil, bemused as ever, nods and then wanders out. As the door swings shut, Steve turns back to Bucky. “Listen, that whole thing before - can we just forget about it? I had a shitty day, you had a shitty day, none of it matters.” 

He’s not even sure why he’s saying any of this. It’s not like he’s anything to Bucky, it’s not like they’re friends - but something tells him it’s important, that maybe he owes Bucky this much in return for whatever made him clam up earlier. 

“Thanks,” says Bucky with an attempted smile that’s more of a grimace. “It felt like a really big thing at the time, you know?” Steve does know, and some of that must show on his face because Bucky’s mouth un-contorts itself with obvious relief. 

“Some days are a lot.” Bucky ducks his head in agreement. “Anyway, it’s pretty dull around here most of the time so at least you shake things up a bit.” It’s a lame attempt at humor but Steve finds it’s the truth, and Bucky seems more relaxed again, so it was worth it. 

They sit in silence for a couple more minutes and then Bucky unfolds himself from the chair and stands up. Steve springs up too. 

“I should get back to school, talk to the nurse - don’t want to keep her hanging around waiting for me.” Bucky runs his uninjured hand through his hair, which thoroughly messes up the bun. There are strands sticking up in a catastrophic fauxhawk and Steve tries very hard not to laugh. “Damn it.” Bucky yanks out the elastic and snaps it around his wrist. Hair falls around his jaw like the world’s most haphazard L’Oréal commercial and he sort of -- shakes his head, but it’s less modelesque and more reminiscent of a wet dog. He looks vaguely annoyed as he says, “You know what, Pierce can just fucking deal.” 

Since Steve has no idea who Pierce is, he assumes Bucky’s talking to himself and doesn’t respond. “Right then,” says Bucky, “I’ll get going. Thanks so much for everything, you really didn’t have to, and - I’m sorry about the mess.” 

Steve mumbles something about how it’s all fine and opens the door, following Bucky out of the stockroom. When they get to the front of the store, Phil’s nowhere in sight - so much for his edicts about how there should always be someone at the register. Bucky pauses, one hand on the glass of the door like he wants to say something more and then starts. 

“Did Clint pay for the broken paint?” Steve would bet that wasn’t what he meant to say but he can’t exactly ask. He wants to tell Bucky not to worry about it, but Phil wouldn’t like that and much as Steve finds he likes Bucky, he doesn’t feel much like covering the cost out of his own paycheck. 

“Don’t worry about it now, I can find out and I’ll make a note behind the register - check with Clint and if not, one of you can come back and sort it out another day, yeah?” That seems reasonable enough. He absolutely does _not_ spend a second hoping that Clint didn’t pay for the paint and that Bucky will feel compelled to come back. 

“Yeah, sounds good, thank you.” Bucky opens the door and the bell makes its terrible clattering sound. “Bye then, I guess I’ll just -” He raises his bandaged hand in an awkward approximation of a wave, which Steve, for some fucking reason, returns. 

“Bye.” Bucky heads out into the street and Steve watches him go with a funny little glow in his chest. What a weird afternoon. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Bucky cuts his hand quite badly on some broken glass and Steve patches him up. it's not a severe injury but - for what's meant to be quite a lightweight event i wrote the word "blood" a truly astounding number of times.

**Author's Note:**

> re: Mental Health etc. ---  
> \- if you've nipped down here before you've read the chapter - may i assure you that it's not nearly as heavy as all this makes it sound. this is, at its core, a story about two catastrophic millennials trying their best to get their shit together and also date.  
> \- Bucky starts this fic in a state of extreme stress and is essentially having a panic attack (although he doesn't recognise it as such) for a big chunk of the first chapter. later, Clint gives him a big pep talk and helps him start to steer things back on track.  
> \- Steve is your run of the mill "ugh i'm so bad at life why do i let my insecurities get in the way of stuff" variety of miserable but has a flair for the dramatic about it.  
> \- things cheer up for both of them over the course of the story and we leave them having experienced a Serious Amount of Personal Growth and Progress although i regret to inform you that love is not in fact a suitable alternative to therapy and establishing coping techniques, either in this narrative or life generally. to paraphrase some wise person, a relationship doesn't cure your mental health issues but sometimes it's nice to be cuddled by a bag of forks when you feel really shitty.  
> \- there are absolutely a couple of lines in here that should come with a Surgeon General's warning re: being flippant about feeling terrible, and also bad attitudes to one's own mental health and wellbeing. that's on me and my own flawed coping mechanisms aka off-colour jokes.  
> \- i'm not diagnosing either of them with anything - i never set out to write a story about mental health, stress, anxiety, depression, etc., but the more i wrote the more it appeared to me that that was what i was writing about. they don't feel great, they aren't happy about their lives, they feel much better by the end because they've taken positive steps to alleviate the strain on them.


End file.
